Promoting Environmental Health & Literacy

Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy

The 7th annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy was held this past Tuesday at the UN Headquarters in Geneva. Sponsored by 20 human rights NGOs, the Geneva Summit brings together various human rights leaders, activists, and dissidents from around the world who speak out on behalf of human rights, justice, and democracy. This year’s summit focused mainly on the themes of confronting authoritarianism, fighting oppression and defending human rights, communist regime reforms, and the future of liberal democracy.

This year’s panel discussion also highlighted two countries with very poor human rights’ records–Nigeria and Pakistan. Saa, a Nigerian schoolgirl who escaped from Boko Haram, spoke about her personal experience when she was kidnapped by the terrorist group. Following this, Ashiq Masih, who is on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy, spoke about her personal experience and violation of her right to freedom of speech. Throughout the summit, various other human rights activists from countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, and China gave their personal stories of human rights violations, giving this year’s conference an added personal dimension.

Furthermore, during the conference, two prestigious awards were given out. The Women’s Rights Award was given to Masih Alinejad for the creation of a Facebook page inviting women in Iran to post pictures of themselves without a headscarf. This Facebook page became incredibly popular and represented the larger political message of protesting the requirement for women to wear a hijab. Ms. Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, said she is not strictly opposed to the hijab, but believes women should be given a choice about wearing one. The next award, the Courage Award, was given to Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam on his blog.

Finally, the summit concluded with a discussion on the future of liberal democracy, with statements from the director of UN Watch and other human rights NGOs on the importance of promoting human rights and democracy, particularly in countries with poor human rights track records.